How we conducted a comprehensive FTO search on Furnace and Power Supply?

Overview of Product

Recently, an FTO was assigned. After reading the product details, I found that the product is related to a furnace and power supply. The power supply is used for transferring the metal pieces into the furnace. Further, the furnace comprises multiple fire nozzles for melting the metals. The FTO search was restricted for Jurisdiction – US.

Search Methodology

Initially, the product was thoroughly studied, and after understanding, the key feature was extracted. After that, extracted keywords and their synonyms along with their related IPC/CPC classes.

We began with the search broadly by using different search strategies such as keywords and their synonyms, IPC/CPC classes, keywords + classes, etc.

In addition, the search strategies were restricted with jurisdictional and alive filters. Analyzing the search results and finding the patents or patent applications with all claims in the subject product.

The preliminary search was performed on the patent databases like ORBIT, PATSEER, ESPACENET, GOOGLE, etc. The assignee and inventor-based search is also performed.

Challenges Faced During Search

During the search, we found many patents and patent applications that disclose furnaces. The power supply includes a conveyor for transporting metals to the furnace but

• These patents also include some additional claims elements not included in our subject product.
• Few were already known to the client as he shared the list of known references with us.
• These patents do not disclose the types of materials used in the internal refractory of the furnace (the subject product discloses some specific materials used in the construction of the internal refractory of the furnace).

Then we decided to do a broad search based and make a separate search strategy for every individual feature of the product and use the most relevant IPC/CPC classes in our search strategy along with keywords.

Approach to finding the bang-on reference

After analyzing many results, it was noticed that some assignees are actively working on the furnace. So, we extract the most relevant assignee and make a search strategy by top assignee and most relevant IPC/CPC classes. Further, we also made a specific search strategy for the internal refractory material of the furnace. After using this technique, I got some good relevant patent/patent applications for our FTO search report.

Types of references Shortlisted

We found ten relevant patent/patent application which all independent claims are mapped with the product features and three patent (out of these eight patent references) cover all the features of the subject product. We also found thirty related patent reference, which are also very close to the subject product but they include one additional element.

Report

The search report included multiple sections for summary, key-feature, keywords and classes, relevant results and related results. The product features are listed in the key-feature section and relevant result section. The identified relevant patent or patent application claims are mapped with the listed product features in the relevant section and also provide proper searcher comments if required. We only mapped the patents if all independent claims of the patents are present in product features. The patents/patent applications that includes all features of the products but it also has an extra claimed feature than these kind of references we are not mapped in relevant section but listed in related section. Finally, we provided a search summary in the summary section.